Gov. Ron DeSantis is weighing in on destruction of an occult holiday installation at the Iowa State Capitol, vowing assistance to a “Christian veteran” who beheaded the Satanic Temple’s Baphomet display.
“Satan has no place in our society and should not be recognized as a ‘religion’ by the federal government. I’ll chip in to contribute to this veteran’s legal defense fund. Good prevails over evil — that’s the American spirit,” DeSantis posted to X.
The Governor was responding to reporting by “The Republic Sentinel” that credited Michael Cassidy with beheading the statue and then trashing the severed skull.
“I saw this blasphemous statue and was outraged,” Cassidy said. “My conscience is held captive to the word of God, not to bureaucratic decree. And so I acted.”
The Florida Governor has weighed in on the devilish display already this week once, blaming a rival in the Republican presidential race for platforming the Satanic Temple through tax policy.
“It’s interesting, I heard this and then I was like, well, how did it get there? Is that even a religion? And lo and behold, the (Donald) Trump administration gave them approval to be under the IRS as a religion. So that gave them the legal ability to potentially do it,” DeSantis said, adding that “it very well may be because of that ruling under Donald Trump that they may have had a legal leg to stand up.”
The Associated Press reports that in 2019, the IRS granted the Satanic Temple tax-exempt status. Prior to that, then-President Trump issued an executive order offering “robust protections for religious freedom” that provided the basis for that change of tax status.
DeSantis believes Trump “recognized it as a religion because otherwise you wouldn’t have been able to do it” and he doesn’t “think that was the right decision.”
The Governor has offered legal defense help to another veteran this campaign season as well: the indicted subway strangler Daniel Penny of New York, who choked out a man for six minutes on public transportation long after victim Jordan Neely had stopped moving.
“Vets look out for other vets,” DeSantis said in a May 16 defense of Penny. “What we can’t have in our society is inmates running the asylum.”
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